Media content such as coupons, advertisements, music, and the like may be provided to users in order to incent a purchase, attain brand awareness, and achieve other goals. However, the issuance of too many coupons for an item may cause an unnecessary loss of profits relative to the benefits of the coupon for the issuer. More generally, consumer fatigue may result if media content is distributed to users too frequently. Consumer fatigue may occur when, for example, a user is over-exposed to the media content, or to items that are being promoted by the media content. As a result, the effect of the media content may be diluted, and the image of the items being promoted may be tarnished.
Moreover, in some systems, the distribution of media content may occur via numerous channels including, for instance, via various retailers, chains of retailers, websites, or other outlets. Thus, it can be quite difficult to track and limit the distribution of media content across various communication channels especially when they are distributed and federated in nature.